


Detente By Practice

by inbox



Series: Psychic Load [14]
Category: Cable (Comics), Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Punisher (Comics), Wolverine (Comics)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Boxing & Fisticuffs, Choking, Grappling, Hand & Finger Kink, Hand Jobs, M/M, Muscles, Past Relationship(s), Rimming, Scars, Scent Kink, Scents & Smells, Size Difference, Strangulation, Telekinesis, Telepathy, Wrestling, ball worship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-24
Updated: 2020-10-24
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:07:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27172210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbox/pseuds/inbox
Summary: “I’m not screwing you in the gym,” says Cable, doing a fantastic impression of a man bored to death despite the fact he’s panting hard, chest rising and falling as he grinds up between Logan’s thighs.“You treatin’ me nice, Snowball?” Logan sets his teeth against the bulge of scar tissue running down Cable’s neck, pressing down ‘til he feels the metal click against his teeth as Cable swallows hard. “Gonna be a gentleman and take me out for dinner first?”What's a little combative late night screwing around between frenemies?
Relationships: Frank Castle/Logan (mentioned), Frank Castle/Nathan Summers (mentioned), Logan (X-Men)/Nathan Summers
Series: Psychic Load [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1367605
Comments: 12
Kudos: 29





	Detente By Practice

Krakoa sleeps. 

Krakoa sleeps and Logan roams the Atlantic island, aimless and out of sorts. It's one of those nights, long and empty, and he's clocking up the miles in an effort to quieten his mind and wear out his body. 

S’ definitely a futile effort but making the effort is what counts, surely. 

Logan could step out of any number of portals and appear anywhere on Earth - safe, not so safe, some places in desperate need of a pair of claws and a bloody disposition - but he's not in the mood for that. Not in the right headspace. Getting down into the hot and wet and slippery meat for less than noble purposes is something he's trying to avoid lately. 

So he walks, and walks, and walks, and jogs through a portal and slingshots himself halfway around the world while thinking vaguely about getting a beer, or sitting in the hot springs, or seeing if anyone is awake around the plaza, or any dozen other things that don’t feel like they might tire him out, or ease the feeling that his skin is a size too small. 

Hot springs though, huh. That’s a thought, plenty of ‘em scattered around Krakoa. Or, one of the Krakoas? Logan is vaguely aware of how the portals work, absorbed just enough to get by if people are dumb enough to ask him about ‘em, but wrapping his brain around the concept of multiple islands spread across multiple oceans while still technically being the _same_ island does his head in if he thinks about it too much. 

As a rule he tries not to think too much about, well, anything these days. No good has ever come of that for him, and it’s a damn easy guess to think that no good ever will. 

There's a particular hot spring on this Krakoa though, one of several, and one in particular that no one visits ‘cept him and a couple of other malcontents. That’s a place he likes, with steaming hot water that glows when disturbed and a waterfall that runs cold down the cliffs, hidden away ‘round the ass end of the island and far away from anyone and anything on Krakoa. Logan scents the air, gets a feel for where he is and where he needs to be, and starts walking.

He jogs along the beach, takes a shortcut by sending himself through three or four small heavily forested portals, jagging back and forth around the islands ‘til he gets close to where he wants to be; smelling the algae and the heat and the wet scent of dripping hot greenery. The cliffs rise above him, stark basalt faces topped by ruby red earth, and Logan’s already half stripped and ready to get wet when he gets a note of something cold on the wind and squints at the cliff path, up and up and up, ‘til he spots a faint light halfway up the cliff.

There are a few gyms scattered around Krakoa, but only one was budded from the fertile earth for the express needs of the mutants who know how to throw a punch, to fight dirty, to use their bodies and brawn to win a fight just as much as they might rely on their genetic strengths. S’one thing to have mutant powers at your disposal, Logan opines, but powers don't mean diddly-shit if someone's comin’ at you with a dampening collar and you don't know how to punch their damn teeth out. 

Huh. A hot spring soak might quiet his mind for a bit, but throwing down and brawling in the still of the night might just be the ticket to making himself tired enough to count. 

Logan takes his time meandering up the cliff path, whistling tunelessly between his teeth ‘til he reaches the building built low and squat and settled flush into the black rock cliff. He takes in the faint light shining through a far window, eyeballs the side door chocked open with a wedge of stone. When he gets up close he can see that the earth outside has been knocked back in a concentric circle, shock impact, two big boot prints square in the middle. 

The kind of mark left behind by someone lazily teleporting to the gym. 

If Logan hadn't already caught a nose full of faded muscle liniment and a hint of burnt ozone lingering on the still night air then that alone would have narrowed his suspect list down considerably; adding in the familiar aroma of another of the island’s chronic insomniacs just slimmed his options down to one. 

Which, Logan thinks as he stamps his feet at the door to knock off the worst of the island’s red earth, ain't a bad thing. There are a few people in this world always ready to throw Logan a fight or a fuck or both, and the fella somewhere in the gym never needs much enticement to throw Logan a bone either way.

It doesn't take real effort to find the lone occupant of the building. Logan follows the sound of heavy thuds, the noise of powerful fists slamming into leather, and saunters his way towards the back of the building. 

Logan leans against the gym door and watches, silent, as Cable lays into the punching bag, running drills under the soft green glow of bioluminescent lights. Sharp jabs from the torso, big arcing uppercuts, long powerful sweeps that start out in the stars and leave the bag rattling on its chain. 

Again. Fast staccato rolls at chin height, powerful punches from the shoulder, dirty low hits that would leave an opponent gasping for breath. 

Again. Again. Cable ignores his audience and repeats his sets until he's blinking stinging sweat from his eyes, sweatpants clinging damp to his thighs. 

No way he hasn’t noticed Logan at the door. He can smell it on Cable, the brief spike of adrenaline when he felt eyes on him, fading away as he shakes out his fists and squares up again, putting himself through his paces like a drill sergeant.

“Keep that up and you'll blow out your shoulder.” Logan unpicks his laces and leaves his boots at the door, socks tossed on top, and pushes off the door frame to saunter across the room in a way that he specifically knows irritates Cable to no end.

“Didn't ask for advice,” Cable grunts, rolling his wrists and fiddling with his hand wraps. Logan takes the punching bag and leans into it, holding it steady.

“You're still babying your arm,” he observes. “You're still pulling your punches on the left.”

Cable scowls at him. “Is this professional courtesy or are you here to annoy me?”

“Bit of both.” He braces the bag and nods for Cable to square up. “You gonna start or--.”

Cable takes a few easy swings, then starts to lay into the bag. He finds his rhythm and starts to rock on his feet to the momentum of his punches, big solid hits that Logan absorbs easily. Logan knows he's a short little fucker, dense as a collapsing star, built low to the ground and hard to knock over. He leans into the bag and plants his feet and says, smugly, to put some effort into it. 

Cable leans into his pattern, leans into the lactic burn of his muscles, leans into the bag ‘til his shoulder is square against the vinyl and he’s laying short nasty jabs that’d collapse the diaphragm of any man who was unlucky enough to catch one in the gut. 

“You,” pants Cable. “Are a fucking pest.”

“Yup.” The grin Logan gives him has too many visible teeth, sharp and white. 

Logan knows Cable can't read him clearly. Can't read specifics off his brain, the signal too full of noise from the breaking and remaking of Logan's neurons to be legible. He can push an idea into Logan’s head, or get a broad overview of what he's thinking, but that's about it. He's thinking _sweat_ , and _bored_ , and picturing the view from the highest peak of Krakoa Pacific when he feels Cable nosing around the back of his mind, trying to see through the snow and static. Logan smirks at him and changes his mental broadcast to a choppy image of Cable laid out sweaty and flushed on Krakoa’s red volcanic earth, thighs invitingly apart, moonlight gleaming on endless metal and naked skin.

Cable shakes his head, unflustered. Logan smirks and wipes his nose on his sleeve, the picture of innocence. 

Normally him’n Cable like to keep a healthy distance apart from each other. It's not that they dislike each other, exactly, but they rub each other the wrong way without meaning to and sometimes _when_ meaning to, to results that vary anywhere from figuratively explosive to literally explosive. Logan likes fighting Cable, as long as Snowball can keep his temper in check. Brawling is fine. Getting telekinetically thrown against the wall is not. He’s got enough manners to keep his claws out of play when they’re tussling, but the courtesy isn’t exactly regularly returned to him.

In Logan’s expert opinion the problem with Cable is that Slim’s kid is a stubborn jackass with a sense of self assuredness equal to the gravitational weight of a planet, and Logan’s already well stocked on that kind of confidence. Of course they’re gonna fight like cats n’ dogs, him and Cable. Sometimes it ends in a fight. Sometimes it ends in a fight _and_ Cable bending Logan in half in the Blackbird’s pisser, face pushed against the tiny mirror over the sink, fucking him hard enough that the pressed steel edge of the basin leave bruises on his hipbones that bloom and fade in minutes. Other times it ends up in a bed, a cot, somewhere comfortable that's good on his knees as he hilts himself balls deep and fills his hands with thick muscle and satiny metal, Cable gasping and panting and laid out below Logan like a five course meal. 

“C'mon,” Cable says, shaking out his hands. His eye sparks bright and the heavy punching bag comes to an abrupt stop, chain rattling from the roof. “Say whatever it is you’re dying to say.”

Logan shrugs, blatantly ogling the swell of Cable's muscles. He tracks the progress of a drop of sweat sliding down Cable’s neck, down his collar. “Can't a man pay a social call?”

“You? No. Spit it out.” 

Logan gives him that look again, full of teeth. 

“Well,” he says slowly. “I was wondering if you were’n the mood for some fun.”

Cable gives him an unimpressed look, lips pressed in a flat line. “Logan.”

“I'm bored,” he says, stepping back and spreading his hands wide. “You're bored. I can smell it on you, Tiny. You're going stir crazy here, taking it all out on an innocent bag of sand at two in the morn’. Might as well fuck it out. Really get a workout, huh.”

Logan lets the well-deserved exhalation of disgust slide with little more than an appropriately lazy shrug, _who cares, I'm right._

“And,” he continues, “It's not like you’re able to easily leave right now, no more’n me. Doesn't suit yer style to have a bunch of busybodies monitoring your moves. Plus it's not like you can destress n’ disappear off to play house with your missus.” He pauses, tilts his head in a way that would almost be dog-like if his expression wasn't so shrewd. “Your wife tells me you're divorced though, so… I guess Castle's restorative pussy is off-limits. My condolences.”

Cable doesn't rise to the bait. “You have my blessings to take Frank out for a milkshake date, Logan.”

Logan contorts his face into a showy scowl of disappointment, and breaks into a smug smirk when Cable exhales like he's being tested by God himself. “No fun allowed. Anyone ever tell you you've got a stick up your ass the size of a redwood?” Logan readies against the punching bag again, nodding for Cable to start his pattern fresh. 

“Frequently.” He shakes his hands out, metal muscles gleaming otherworldly blue under the Krakoan organic lights spiderwebbed over the ceiling, and takes his stance. Hips angled, torso square, fists ready. Textbook perfect form, pretty as a picture, a real one-two sucker punch to anyone unaware that Cable was a notoriously dirty fighter.

“‘Course you do,” says Logan, and laughs when Cable starts off with a right hook that starts somewhere up near the sun, connecting solid with leather ‘n sand and, on a different day, Logan’s face. “That's the one single thing I like about you, Summers, other’n your nice dick. All that consistency.”

They stay like that for a while, running drills and patterns until even Logan is getting up a sweat from absorbing the heavy weight of Cable’s punches. The gym feels hot, moisture clinging to his skin and dripping from the vines criss-crossing the ceiling, the organic floor reeking like moss and wet earth.

“You look like you need a break,” says Cable, syrupy kind. He’s sweating hard himself, shirt soaked in deep dark Vs down to his belly, his sides, his back. When he turns around the grey fabric of his sweats is mottled dark with moisture, clinging to his ass and thighs. It's worth a second, longer look, ‘til a touch of telekinesis touches Logan’s chin and forces him to look up at Cable’s performatively annoyed expression. 

“Eat shit.” Logan stands back anyway, rolls his shoulders and rolls his wrists, loosening out his joints. “This all you’ve got planned tonight, big fella?”

Cable shrugs, _ehh._ “I’m open to your expert training advice.”

“Wanna wrestle?” 

He doesn’t look up from undoing his hand wraps, winding the heavy cotton onto his thumb like a spool. “Thought you wanted to fuck.”

He laughs and gives Cable a long appraising look, from his bare feet (one flesh, one gleaming pristine metallic against the damp matting) to his broad thighs to the way his sweaty grey hair clumps together, ruffled against the grain where Cable has been wiping his face with his forearm. “Don’t take that off the table, bub. I’m open to suggestions.”

“No eyes, no testicles.” Cable gives him an equally critical look, feet to eyes, and pulls a face. “Don't get handsy.”

“Not at first,” Logan agrees, and grins with all his teeth when Cable sighs like he's being aggrieved to his breaking point. 

They opt for light sparring at first, easy hits can they block and deflect from each other. Logan seizes the upper hand instantly, upper body strength not sapped from punishing a boxing bag. He uses Cable’s blind spot to his advantage, ducking and weaving to the left to score a few cheap hits, grapples and pins, holds and restraints. Logan uses his weight to break free when Cable catches him in a bear hug and lifts, his dense mass and smaller stature letting him wriggle out of Cable’s arms even as his feet leave the mat. He digs his thumbs into Cable’s wrists, jamming down hard until Cable swears and forces himself loose. 

“Oaths sake, you’re a dirty little bitch,” Cable says, mismatched eyes blazing, and lunges for him with a grunt. 

“Just the way you like it.” Logan ducks under his arms and kicks him on the back of the knee, sending the big man crashing to the mat. “Nothing but the best for you, Tiny.” He offers Cable a hand up, rebuffed with something unkind mumbled under Cable’s breath as he lumbers back to his feet, colossal as a mountain. 

“Don't be like that,” he says sweetly, butter not melting in his mouth, weaving out of reach and bouncing on the balls of his feet. Cable almost lets the act drop, the corner of his mouth lifting just a degree or two, before he scowls and he grunts and his eye blazes and he sweeps Logan's leg out from under him with a kick; the combined force of unforgiving metal and a brick wall of telekinesis slamming Logan hard enough to spin him ‘round as he drops to the ground face-first like a sack of potatoes. 

Cable follows him down in a controlled drop, and pins him with a big hand on the back of his head and says, “Don't be like that,” smug as all hell. 

Logan lets himself get pinned to the mat, Cable’s heavy weight smothering him all over. For a brief moment all he can see is darkness, nose filled with an overhead funk of the strange biological Krakoan-grown mat, the fresh sweat under Cable’s arms, the sour smell of his breath at Logan's ear. Logan arches his back and grinds his ass into the apex of Cable’s thighs, thrilling at the feel of the thick weight of Cable’s half-hard dick rubbing against Logan's hole. 

“Hell,” Cable breathes, and pushes him down harder. He pushes against Logan, grinding into him. “Hell,” he says again, before rolling off him to get on his knees and spread his arms, elbows bent and ready. His cock pushes out the front of his sweats, hanging heavy and thick against the thin cotton, and Logan permits himself to take a long unhurried look before getting up. 

“Pity this isn't somewhere more connubial,” Logan says, swaying his weight from knee to knee before he lunges under Cable’s arms, spearing his shoulder into his gut and scrabbling to get his feet under him. He digs his toes into the mat for leverage, counting on momentum to knock Cable’s center of gravity out from underneath him and send him sprawling backwards with a grunt. He crawls over Cable’s lap and rubs off against his erection, hard against his gut. “Nice dick like this. Might leave a man in the mood t’get fucked.”

“Like you need an excuse,” says Cable, pissy and snide, but he's got one big hand hard on Logan’s hip and those thick gleaming metal fingers pulling at his waistband, blindly groping ‘til his fly gives way and he can jam his hand down the back of Logan's ratty jeans, grasping at his ass and squeezing. 

“You know it,” he says, and Cable's thick fingers dig into his ass hard, pulling him wide. Logan can feel the tense quiver of Cable's gut under him as he slumps forward, back arched to let those metal fingers brush over his asshole, pushing dry against him, compelling and threatening in equal measure . 

“I’m not screwing you in the gym,” says Cable, doing a fantastic impression of a man bored to death despite the fact he’s panting hard, chest rising and falling as he grinds up between Logan’s thighs. 

“You treatin’ me nice, Snowball?” Logan sets his teeth against the bulge of scar tissue running down Cable’s neck, pressing down ‘til he feels the metal click against his teeth as Cable swallows hard. “Gonna be a gentleman and take me out for dinner first?”

Cable groans, as annoyed as he is turned on. “I’ll buy you a cheeseburger if you’re worth it.”

“Oh, _darlin’,”_ Logan says, pressing a chaste kiss to the unshaven stubble on Cable’s cheek. “You sure know how to treat a fella nice.”

“For oaths sake, shut the fuck up,” snaps Cable, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and pulling him down for a proper kiss. 

He kisses great, always has, just how Logan likes it; darting licks of his tongue against Logan’s lips ‘til he opens up and lets Cable take his mouth properly. They kiss ‘til Cable pulls back and cranes his head to the side, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “I’m not gonna fuck you on this disgusting mat and I’m not gonna screw you in the showers, so I hope you’ve got a better option planned.”

“Ha!” Logan pulls away and rolls up onto his feet, and offers Cable a hand, palm up. “You know what, Tiny? I reckon I can think of somewhere that’ll suit just fine.”

* * *

The hot springs look prettier than usual tonight, laid out like a jewel far down the cliffs. Thin steam billows over the water, painted silvery grey by the weak moon hanging near the horizon. On the far side of the spring cold water trickles down a rocky face, splashing and dripping from vine leaves and disturbing the water enough to force a soft bioluminescent glow.

Damn pretty, thinks Logan. Damn nice to look at. He's looking forward to getting Cable naked and useless in the middle of all that prettiness, sucking Cable’s smarts outta the tip of his dick.

The walk down the cliffs goes much faster than his climb up, even in bare feet, and Logan enjoys the brief frisson of excited nerves that sparks up and down his spine when Cable voices his approval, squeezing Logan’s shoulder as he says that it beats going back to Logan’s god-awful bachelor pad.

“Good for what ails you,” says Logan with a wave of his hand, _ta-dah_ , like he’d manufactured the entire location just for Cable’s edification. He drops his boots on a rocky ledge and strips without fanfare, his keen hearing picking up Cable’s admiring inhalation as he peels off his shirt and unzips his jeans. 

Cable sits on Logan’s clothes and gestures for him to turn around, show off the goods. He obliges with just enough hesitation to play-act at being annoyed at the request, then flexes showily, biceps flexing. “Meet your standards?”

Cable shrugs, just as affectedly bored. “You’ll do.” 

“Can't be picky,” he says, and wisely swallows the rest of his sentence. _You ain't got anyone else to fall back on,_ etcetera. He's as ready to take a fight from Cable as quickly as he’ll take a fuck, but even that might be pushing it a bit too far. Save it for afterwards, sure. 

Logan reaches past him to test the water, getting right up in his personal space so Cable’s got no excuse but to get a handful of Logan’s side, palming at the solid muscle of his lats and stroking that smooth metal hand down his flank, his hip, getting a handful of his dick and squeezing feather-gentle.

Logan pauses for a moment as he stirs up the water, uncharacteristically unsure whether he should err on the side of tact, especially when Cable’s thick metal fingers are cupping his balls like he's measuring their weight. Then, fuck it, he decides. Go all in. They’ll grow back. 

“You and Castle really split up?”

“Apparently,” says Cable blandly, before he sighs and the veneer of assholeish aloofness drops away. “Yes. Don't ask me why ‘cause I don't know why.”

Logan climbs up the ledge without fanfare, sliding past Cable’s impressive bulk to step into the steaming hot water. He groans with contentment as he wades deeper, steam wreathing ’round his thighs before he sprawls forward and sinks into the water, chopping through the bioluminescence with the flat of his hands to stir it up bright. 

“Huh,” says Logan. “That's not what I expected.”

“And what were you expecting, exactly,” Cable says, voice muffled as he pulls his sweaty shirt over his head. “He said fuck off, I've fucked off.”

“Castle's a prickly one.” He watches Cable make a half-attempt at folding his clothes. “Though I guess that explains a whole lot ‘bout why the two of you reeked when we fished him out of that box. Nearly gave me a headache, that kinda tension stinking up the air.”

Cable sighs again, shoving his sweats down and stepping into the hot spring with a leonine grumble of pleasure. He takes a seat and spreads his arms wide along the mossy stone edge and regards Logan with a bland, mildly quizzical expression. 

“Enjoy it,” says Logan testily. “Don't start playing head games.”

“Wouldn't dream of it.” Cable watches Logan wade back to where the water is only thigh-deep, watches the glowing ripples fade in his wake, and watches Logan duck under to rinse himself off; water cascading through the thick hair on his tits and his gut and dripping from his half-hard dick when he emerges with a splash. 

Cable smells good, earthy and warm; his interest scented like sun-warmed stone as he watches Logan show off a little, muscles and skin, the smell blooming in intensity when Logan leans against the thick metal muscle of Cable’s thigh and fists his dick and strokes himself hard.

He wipes a trickle of sweat from his temple and grazes his hand over the blossoms bowed over the water. The flowers tremble and curl against Cable’s fingers and Krakoa responds, the trickle of water down a far rock face bursting out in a cascade of Arctic cold water to plunge the temperature of the entire pool down a few degrees. 

He nods, satisfied, and Logan rolls his eyes. 

Another typical Summers, adjusting things to his liking without asking for permission first. Least that behaviour never changes, built into the genes and consistent to the end. God knows how Frank dealt with that. Done the right way it’d probably been the greatest thing Castle had ever experienced, providing Cable had enough sense to dole it out like a treat. Which, he thinks, hinged on Cable being smart enough to not act like a Summers 100% of the time, so...

“So you got your marching orders--?”

“‘Bout six months ago,” Cable says flatly. He strokes one of the thick vines curling ‘round the rocky lip of the baths and it arches into his touch, trembling with effort as it buds and blooms into a shampoo ginger flower, its deep red cone hanging heavy with juice. Cable squeezes the flower ‘til the sweet juice pools in his palm and, after a slight pause, slaps a pat of it onto Logan's hair. “So I wasn't joking. You've got my blessing to go sniffing around that tree.”

Logan laughs at him, half mean, half pitying. “You got the wrong idea, bub,” he says, crouching back in the water and rubbing the juice through his hair ‘til it starts to foam up in a thin lather. “I like Frank, much as anyone can. I respect him. I definitely like’ta fuck him ‘til he's passes out then fuck him ‘til he wakes up. But playing happy housewife, hell no. That's your bag.” He flicks his hair away from his eyes and squints over at Cable, himself busy washing down, ginger lather smearing on warm metal. “I’ll keep his motor warmed up but that driver's seat is all yours.”

Cable shakes his head. “This metaphor needs a lot of work.”

“If he's in the mood to be found then I'm gonna find him and fight with him or fight against him, then I'm probably gonna fuck him,” says Logan plainly. “‘Cause that's what we do, Frank ‘n me. Keeps it nice and simple. Can't speak for Frank but s’far as I'm concerned I'd like to fuck him with you too, all together, 'cause I reckon that'd be a stellar night.” He pushes off from the side of the pool and sits across Cable’s thighs, not bothering to take it easy with his considerable weight. He plants his hands on Cable's knees, fingertips digging into muscle and metal as he leans back into the water to rinse clean. 

Cable says something that Logan misses, ears under water. He lingers for a moment, spine arched long and lean as Cable’s hands settle on his hips, keeping him in place. Cable is half-hard, dick pressing heavy against Logan’s inner thigh, and it's got him interested in turn, breathing in the smell of hot want beginning to leech from Cable’s skin and into the water, slowly perfuming the entire pool. 

Logan feels him up, feeling the rise and fall of Cable's breathing, the slight give of metal, the way Cable’s nipple tightens when he squeezes his tits. He leans forward to nose under Cable’s arm, shoving his face into Cable’s pit to smother himself in clean sweat and damp hair and fresh ginger. Under his cheek he can hear Cable’s heart pick up a beat, that big powerful muscle striking a steady strong drumbeat in his chest.

“All together, huh,” asks Cable, one big hand wrapped around Logan's shoulder. 

He smirks into the hot warm space under Cable’s arm. 

There's a smell of hot want on Cable’s skin, building up stronger since they started fooling around out on the mats, but it's tempered by something else when the subject of Frank comes up. A bit of anger, like hot asphalt on a sunny day, but there's something else there too. Something that smells like a wild ocean, salt spray and cold wind. 

Longing. Loneliness.

Huh. He's never thought of Cable as someone who could feel lonely. The big fella never seems to acknowledge being by himself outside of his work, outside of his not-so little girl. He's never made noises about settling down, or whatever counts for settling down in Cable’s mind, never spoken about what he plans on doing when he's too old and busted to fight.

Maybe he'd been a better fit with Frank than Logan suspected. Frank was a whole lot more important to him than Logan realised. Maybe, too, it'd been a whole lot more important to Cable than even Frank knew about.

“Nothing stopping you from sending a sweetheart text. Make nice with your--”

Cable sighs in defeat, chest rising and falling like a wave. “Can we not talk about this while you're feeling me up?”

Logan laughs at that, rubbing his face into Cable’s arm. “After Castle spilled the beans on you two, I started paying attention, trying t’smell him on you.” He cranes upwards to lick a path over the heavy swell of Cable's pec, coarse hair grating at his tongue. “Sometimes I'd catch a whiff of him on you. Smell you comin’ through the portal reeking of sweat and cum, telling everyone you'd been out working hard when I could tell you'd been screwing around. Filthy.”

“Jealous?”

“Like crazy.” He sucks Cable’s nipple into his mouth, drawing hard ‘til Cable hisses and he lets go with a showy pop. “D’you wanna fuck?”

“Got nothing better to do.” Cable hauls him up his chest, blindly feeling for a thick questing vine as he licks and sucks at Logan's jaw, blunt teeth pressing down on the thin skin under his ear. He tickles at the vine as it caresses his palm and weaves around his fingers, breaking it blind and letting it drip thick viscous sap over his fingers. Cable nudges at Logan’s hips til he takes the hint and kneels up, ass out of the water. He rubs the thick oily sap between Logan’s cheeks, warming it up ‘til it runs wet and slick down his thighs and trickles down his balls.

Logan doesn't bother hiding his satisfied groan as Cable presses a thick unyielding metal finger inside. He's known Tiny long enough, and fucked him enough times too, to know that Cable likes an appreciative audience. Logan moaning pretty by Cable’s ear gets him fingered faster, rocking back onto his hand gets him an abrupt second finger, and then a third. 

“That's the spot,” he says. “Right there.”

Cable says _mmhmm_ to himself, tipping Logan forward even more so he's sprawled over Cable’s chest, belly to shoulder. He says, not unkindly, to shut the fuck up when Logan tries to talk, half attempting some kinda dirty spit to rile Cable up even further, and half baiting him into another squabble. 

“Let me live,” Cable says, wetting his fingers again, working them in up to the knuckle. “Don't ruin this by opening your fat mouth.”

Cable might be an arrogant bull-headed asshole but he's got great hands, and Logan lets himself enjoy the ride. He slumps on Cable's big broad chest and licks at the sweat beading at the ugly intersection between flesh and metal, feeling Cable’s throat rise and fall under his mouth. The water glows around them, bioluminescence rippling with the motion of Cable’s arms, spreading across the warm pool in a pattern of ripples and swirls.

Cable’s skin tastes sour and salty where he's sweating, skin hot under Logan's tongue. It makes something in Logan's primal brain turn greedy and worshipful in equal measure; as inclined to dig his teeth into that rigid bulge of scar tissue as he is to lay there and let Cable diligently work him over ‘til he comes. 

Logan pants as Cable presses three fingers as deep as he can go, rubbing smooth against his walls before he spreads his fingers wide and says, low, that Logan is much more agreeable like this; boneless and compliant and well trained, a good dog. 

He grinds off on Cable’s stomach, hips rocking in a pleasurable loop between the weight of Cable’s fingers and the coarse scratch of hair on his belly, and when he turns his face up for a kiss Cable chuckles and uses some of that immense telekinetic strength to drag him up a few inches so he can kiss him easily. 

It'd be nice to pretend like he’d bitten Cable’s lip and licked into his mouth and kept his sure footing throughout all of it; just like sparring up under the gym, ducking and weaving and talking shit, keeping Cable on the back foot, controlling the dance between them both ‘til it suited him - suited them both - to give in and let things take its natural course.

But, shit, he didn't. He lay there on Cable’s broad chest, one hand clutching and pawing at the thick meaty living metal of his pec and shoulder, being kissed sweetly as he's petted all over by Cable’s restless telekinesis. It tenderly squeezes at his dick and strokes his thighs, combs through his hair and scratches as his scalp as Cable’s real thick fingers work his hole until he's doing little more than panting into Cable’s mouth, mindless with how good he feels. 

“If only you could be this pleasant all the time,” Cable says, craning back just far enough that he can look at Logan without going cross-eyed. His dud eye is burning bright when Logan looks at him, reflexes dick-drunk and molasses slow, and it leaves a white-hot afterglow in his vision when he blinks. 

“Shuddup,” he says, throat thick and sticky. 

“A therapeutic session once a week,” Cable continues. The corners of his eyes are crinkled up with laughter, a giveaway that tells on his otherwise stern, serious expression. “Bet that'd tire you out enough so you don't come sniffing around annoying me when I'm trying to work out, even if it means I have to work an entire fist in you.”

And that, _that,_ is what pushes him over the edge. 

Logan says, _shit, shit, gonna--_ and sits up in a hurry, barely courteous of Cable's protest as his wrist gets snapped backwards by the graceless motion. He chokes his dick in a death grip as he comes with a grunt, stroking off fast and messy. Thick ropes of semen land on Cable's tits, smearing and sliding pretty on smooth glossy metal while Logan sucks back a big lungful of air and makes a noise of pure self satisfaction before wallowing backwards into the water with a splash. 

“I wasn't done yet,” says Cable, absentmindedly wiping a spatter of cum from his collarbone with the side of his thumb and sucking it clean. He frowns, licking his teeth. “I can taste cigarettes. Oaths sake, Logan. Disgusting.”

“Can't be that disgusted.” Logan raises an eyebrow as he swims back on Cable's thighs, slipping a hand between his legs to stroke Cable’s dick, still heavy and thick and rising solid under the warm water.

“Experience tells me to get over it,” Cable says, tipping his head back against the mossy stone as Logan jerks him off in long smooth pulls, root to tip, and busies himself licking Cable’s tits clean. Cable makes a pleased noise under him, a fractured rumble of noise from deep in his chest that Logan feels as much as he hears, ‘til he sits up and fills his hands with meat and muscle and declares him clean enough to eat off. 

“One of these days I'm gonna fuck you in a bed again. Like civilised people.”

“Where's the fun in that?” 

“Plenty of fun in that,” Cable says, eyes closed. “I need to refresh your memory?”

He doesn't. He knows exactly what Cable is getting nostalgic about. Logan thinks about that time up north of Tazin Lake ‘bout two years prior, just the two of them caught by weather and busted technology, forced to hold steady for a few days in a fishing camp that was closed for the bitter cold winter. The cabin they broke into had been sparse but furnished, stocked with clean blankets and firewood, enough to hunker comfortably for many long days. Logan caught and cooked a sluggish trophy trout that measured as thick as Cable’s thigh, and found a near-full handle of rye in the site office for good measure. Each night they ate fit to burst and had a mug of whiskey to chase away the cold, and fucked long and lazy to ensure the chill couldn't creep back. 

Plenty of fun to be had in a bed. Plenty of fun to be had in looking at Cable spread across the blankets, the fireplace roaring hot and smoking hazy and painting all those thick planes of muscle and metal a luminous rich gold. Plenty of fun in watching Cyke’s kid moaning pretty as Logan pumped him fulla cum and threatened to stopper him up afterwards. Plenty of fun to be had when Cable showed off and lifted him with tender strands of telekinesis, gravity falling away as Logan arched his back and twisted in the air, pliable in Cable’s grip as he got fucked relentlessly slow and steady ‘til he was damn near incoherent and snarling for more. 

He can feel Cable poking around the edge of his mind, peering through the static for a glimpse of what's churning in Logan's brain. He deliberately thinks loud about Cable naked and rolling over how Logan wanted him, almost bordering on obliging for once. He thinks about the way those thick powerful muscles bunched and flexed under Logan's grip as he slung Cable's thigh over his shoulder. He thinks about the way he gave Cable as many loads as he could, pumping him thick with cum 'til Cable’s belly curved improbably flush against the rise of his pretty dick, guts flooded full. Logan thinks about how he'd kept going ‘til Cable was insensate with it, mindless, reduced to moaning under Logan like a prize bitch. 

“Funny, that's not how I remembered it,” Cable says, good eye open just enough to consider Logan though his eyelashes. “The authenticity of this memory needs double checking on at least one thing.”

Cable stinks like pure want, the smell getting thicker still when Logan squeezes his cock and says, nonchalantly, that he'd had some time to think about it. “Improvements,” he adds, stretching the word out obnoxiously long, feeling the way Cable’s dick throbs in his hand on each off-syllable. “Thoughts about what to do next time some big half-metal piece falls into my bed cryin’ about how I'm the one to warm ‘em up.”

“S’good idea,” says Cable, breathing heavy and distracted. “Smart to, _huhh_ , plan ahead.”

“Speakin' of planning ahead,” Logan says, punctuating his sentence with a final squeeze before he slithers up the sticky damp planes of Cable’s torso to get his mouth back on the salty heat of Cable’s neck. “You spent all that time splitting me open. D’ya wanna fuck me or do you want a suck?”

“Your mouth,” says Cable instantly, no pause for hesitation. 

“Christ. At least pretend to think it over. You’re gonna give a fella a complex.”

“You have an excellent mouth,” says Cable blandly. “That beats your second-rate pussy.”

Logan laughs for real at that, sitting up and wiping the stinging sweat from his eyes as he laughs for what feels like the first time in months. “Christ,” he says again, after weighing his options and deciding that it's not worth the effort to pretend like he's offended. “You're a real piece of work.”

“And you suck dick like you're paid to do it, so I'm going with the best option.” Cable gives him a long considered look and reaches up to cup Logan’s chin in his hand, thin bands of metal pinching gently at Logan’s whiskers as he rests his thumb on Logan’s bottom lip and works it in and out a little, rocking back and forth ‘til he takes the hint and sucks it past his teeth. He licks the underside of Cable's thumb, works it over from the tip all the way down to the bowl of his palm. He puts on a real show and it pays off; Cable is breathing harder, eyes glued to the way Logan’s cheeks hollow out as he services Cable’s hand, entranced by the wet slide of living metal over Logan's lips. 

“Oath,” he breathes. “Bright fucking Lady.” He drops his hold on Logan’s hip and gropes at himself underwater, squeezing his dick as Logan blows his hand. 

“Bet you miss this,” Logan says. He licks a broad flat stripe from Cable’s wrist to the tip of his ring finger, tracing torturously slow across the satiny blood-warm metal of his palm. “Having someone on your lap giving you all their attention. Bet your lovely ex-wife couldn't get enough of being put over your knee.”

“Shut the hell up,” says Cable, but it's clear his heart isn't in it. He jacks himself off slow under the water, knuckles knocking against Logan's thigh, pulse jumping when Logan sets his teeth against the meaty rise of metal at the base of his thumb. 

“Reckon we could make a night of it,” Logan continues. He holds Cable by the wrist, holding him in place so he can suck two thick gleaming fingers deep into his mouth, messy and loud and slutty in exactly the way he knows riles Cable up the fastest. When he pulls off there's a thick string of spit hanging between Cable’s fingertips and Logan's lips, catching the moonlight and sparkling silver ‘til it snaps and smears through Logan’s stubble.

He leans forward, gets right into Cable’s personal space, and mouths at his ear. “What if I invited you ‘round and nailed yer pretty ex-wife right in front of you, huh? One more night with Franky, get him outta your system. You can take one last good look at what you're missing. Hell, play your cards right n’ you could do us both, two for one. Go out with a bang.”

“Do not start this shit again,” says Cable with great difficulty, driven well past the point of distraction. He pushes Logan back with the heel of his palm planted square on his sternum. “Do not drag me into your horny homewrecker bullshit.”

“Can't drag your ass anywhere you’re not dying t’go, _sweetheart_ ,” says Logan. He sits back and smirks at him, admiring Cable laid out huge and naked and gleaming under the soft organic glow of the Krakoan water, and bestows one last showy chaste kiss on the tips of Cable’s spit-slick metal fingers. “Like you wouldn't trample this entire island for one more round of playing happy house. I’m just offerin’ the inclusion of my services, free of charge. Coz I'm a nice guy. Generous even.”

“Your altruism knows no bounds.” Cable shakes his head an inch, the corner of his mouth briefly lifting into a lopsided smile. “‘Go out with a bang’. Oaths sake, Logan. That's bad, even for you.”

“Yeah, well,” he says, sliding backwards ‘til he’s standing in waist-high water, regarding Cable thoughtfully. “I don't waste my good material on sure things. Howd’ya want to do this? Sit up on the edge for me.”

Water cascades everywhere when Cable rises to his feet, huge and solid, and Logan swallows dry and holds up his finger, _wait a moment_. 

“Lemme get a good look,” he says. “Let me get an eyeful of my meal.”

Cable, unsurprisingly, obliges without argument. He’s always had a vain streak to him, albeit buried under a whole mess of pragmatic workaholism, but given the right encouragement he’s a peacock who ain’t above showing off his thick muscles to an appreciative audience, and Logan is _very_ appreciative.

He wades forward and gets his hands on Cable’s thighs, eyes-half closed against the spatter of water as Cable lazily jerks himself off, slow and unhurried. Logan squeezes his solid thighs, rubs his thumb down the uneven ugly line where metal bites into flesh and smirks when Cable jolts at the feeling, hips snapping forward. 

“You ever teach Wifey that trick?” 

Cable groans in frustration and drops his hand from his dick. “Why are you like this,” he asks, clearly more rhetorical than actually seeking an answer.

“Don't ask stupid questions,” Logan replies easily, licking a broad stripe up the seam of Cable's thigh, to the crease of his hip, to the heavy hang of his balls. “Well?”

“Frank discovered that by himself,” he says. “Do you have to keep bringing him u--”

“I'm curious,” says Logan, cutting him off. “I never got an invitation to dinner and you somehow couldn't keep the easiest trick in New York satisfied, so all I've got left is my curiosity.”

“By the Lady, you're a prick,” says Cable flatly, but he still gets his hands on Logan's skull and shoves him forward, giving him the option to tip his head back and mouth at Cable’s balls or get suffocated. 

Easy choice. He sucks Cable’s testicles into his mouth, one then the other, hums tunelessly and listens to Cable’s heavy breathing as he idly palms his dick. There's nothing dignified about the way he's snuffling wet, his breathing muffled by warm soft skin and the drip of water and the smear of spit, putting a crick in his neck to tongue at the smooth sensitive skin at the back of Cable’s sac. When he pulls back for a lungful of air all he can smell is Cable, dark and hot between his thighs. It's a perfumed mix of lingering stale sweat in his pubes and wet warm skin and Logan’s own thick spit and the heady reek of want pouring out of Cable’s pores, smearing all over Logan’s face ‘til he's hard again too, pulling at himself as he services Cable.

“You gonna let me blow you or are you happy with your hand,” he says after a while, pulling back to rest his face on Cable’s thigh, panting for breath. He’s not really angling any way. Logan would be content to keep his mouth full of Cable’s pretty balls, lips pinked up from the scratch of coarse silvery pubes, licking and sucking ‘til they draw up tight in his mouth and Cable cums heavy all over Logan’s face, just as he’d be equally content to let Cable fuck his mouth and pour down his throat, hot and thick.

He can feel Cable at the back of his mind, a presence trying its best to force its way through the fog of his brain. He forces one thought as loud and clear and unmissable as can be: Cable laid out on his belly flat over the edge of the pool, the soft glow of water eddying ‘round his thighs while Logan splits his ass wide and eats his hole like a five star steak dinner. 

“That's a thought,” says Cable, sitting down on the rock ledge with a huff of effort. “That's what you want?”

Logan wallows back in the water, his body briefly wrapped by the glimmering ebb and flow of warm water as he ducks under for a moment, a full-body rinse to wash away the film of drying spit coating him from hairline to jaw. “Y’know, it’s whatever you want,” he says when he emerges, wiping the water from his eyes. “No bad options far as I'm concerned.”

Cable sits back a little, legs spread wide. He shakes his head, dud eye gleaming, and soft insistent pressure wraps around Logan’s body to coax him back between Cable’s thighs.

He puts up a token resistance, just for the look of the thing, and that ephemeral touch tightens on Logan’s skin to the knife edge of painful. “There we go,” he says, his voice unexpectedly rough to his own ears. “That's more like it.”

“Play nice,” Cable says lightly. The force on his wrists drags him forwards, water breaking on his chest like a wave against a stone. “It's too late at night to start teaching you how to heel.”

He laughs at that, a big bark of noise that bounces off the cliff face and echoes out to sea. “Not a chance, Summers,” he says, straining back against the telekinetic force intimately spooled around his body until it seizes him all over, binding him tight and holding him in a tenderly cruel vice half in, half out of the water. 

Every breath feels like he's got a boulder on his chest, every heartbeat throbs through his untouched dick like the beat of a war drum. It's the hottest goddamn thing Logan’s experienced in years and from the smug expression on Cable’s face, the asshole knows it. 

“Not a fucking chance,” he says again. “Domestication ain't in my nature.”

“Wouldn't dream of it,” Cable says, showily cupping his balls and playing with his dick, long strokes from root to tip just for Logan’s own private entertainment. “You're more of a choke-chain, piss in the yard type.”

Logan snorts. “Don't think you'd be inclined to complain about either of those things.”

It's Cable’s turn to laugh, taking his hands off his dick to hold his balance on the stone lip of the pool as a genuine roll of laugher swells up and out from deep in his chest. If Logan was the sort to get soft-hearted he'd say that it was a good noise and the kind that, if Cable was inclined to laugh like that more often, might make him something almost approaching likeable. _Almost._

“Next time,” he says, wiping the corner of his good eye and fixing Logan with a look that one might give a misbehaving dog. “Shit, play your cards right and next time I’ll rub your nose in it.”

“I got no time for empty promises.” Logan strains against the straightjacket of pressure holding him tight. “Lemme suck your dick, Summers.”

“Good boy,” says Cable loftily. “Gonna take a rain check on that though. Turns out even you can have a good idea every now and then after all.” 

He slides back into the water, surprisingly graceful for a man built so thick and solid, and wades along the edge of the spring looking for something, cautiously prodding under the water with his feet and ignoring Logan asking him what t’fuck he's up to. Finally, nearly halfway around the pool, he finds whatever it is he's been searching for. “The downside of long legs,” he says over his shoulder, folding himself over to rest his elbows on the mossy edge, kneeling up, ass pushed out. “Makes it damn difficult to find just the right spot sometimes.” He raises one thick eyebrow, gestures expansively behind himself. “You need an invitation?”

“Not in this lifetime,” says Logan, finding his feet as Cable’s telekinetic hold loosens. He leaves a trail of swirling eddies of luminous water behind him, a glowing testament to the speed that he barrels across the hot spring to get his hands on Cable's ass. 

If Logan was a man inclined to poetry he'd say that the whole scene was damn pretty; the cool moonlight and the choppy glow of living water, the glossy sheen of all that naked damp skin, the lustrous gleam of silvery metal snaking up Cable’s side and his sweaty silvery hair and the silvery cold lick of flame curling from his eye. But he isn't, so he doesn't. 

“Y’know, you sitting up all loose ‘n ready like that, that's a hell of a good lookin’ sight,” he says to himself, then, louder, “Shame the rest of you looks like shit.”

Cable merely says _mmhmm_ , not rising to the bait, and shuffles his knees apart a little wider. He's kneeling on something under the water, a stone maybe, high enough that the warm water laps ‘round the top of his thighs, around his balls, the heavy weight of his dick hanging free as he reaches ‘round and back to spread himself up for inspection. 

The muscles in Cable’s leg jump when Logan rubs his knuckles up the knotty scar tissue roping up the inside of his thigh. When he does it again Cable hangs his head, breathing hard, adrenaline and needy want seeping through his skin in equal amounts. 

Logan’s no idiot. He knows Summers hurts like hell most of the time, muscle and bone straining against his own weight, knows that the winding track of inhuman metal biting into his flesh leaves his nerves raw and overactive. Nothing Logan isn't unfamiliar with. Hell, that's half the reason he even knows about these hot springs in the first place. He aches all the time too, the glacial approach of age finally starting to catch up with him, and sometimes soaking ‘til he prunes is the only remedy for it. 

Somehow, for some reason, Summers has chosen to deal with that pain of his nerves being consumed by eroticising it. He pets at his thigh when he's jacking off, he moans like he's been gutshot when Logan licks and sucks at the bite of metal sinking into his neck. It adds something that Logan can't see and can't feel but he can smell it on him, blue and cold; the smell of those frayed nerves jangling and misfiring and forced into something that's borderline good. 

He squeezes Cable’s ass and runs his palms up the vast expanse of that beautifully muscled back, from his thick waist to his shoulder blades, tracking parallel to his spine. Cable lets out the prettiest moan from under his arm, louder again when Logan stops fucking around and splits his ass wide, knocking Cable’s hands away so he can hook his thumbs into Cable’s hole and spit on him.

He eats out Cable with dumb dog enthusiasm, starving and sloppy. Cable had smelled great to Logan before, smothered in the hot dark heat of his balls and thighs, but now Cable _stinks_ with a heady aroma of unashamed enthusiasm and feel good chemicals racing through his blood and dripping out his skin, pooling sweaty on his back and dripping down his sides. He rides back on Logan’s face with a moan that echoes up the cliffs, unashamed of the way he's making a lazy breathless _uh-uh-uh_ noise that rises and falls with every panted breath, not caring that Logan is slurping obscenely wet at him, noisy and spit-smeared. 

Logan blindly digs his fingers into Cable’s thigh and finds him already playing with himself, aggravating his scars. He scratches his blunt nails down Cable’s thigh ‘til he yelps and clenches down under Logan’s mouth, his deep pants of _uh-uh-uh_ bouncing off the water, off the cliffs, echoing out to sea. 

“Fuck, I _love_ your ass,” says Logan, leaning back to catch his breath. “Best fuckin’ part of you. Jesus, Snowball. You shoulda just sat on my face in the gym. Coulda saved us the walk.”

“Considered it,” says Cable. He sounds dazed. “Didn't want to interrupt your shitty boxing advice.”

Logan snorts. “Get your hand on your dick, darlin’. You gonna come from this?”

“Close enough,” says Cable, breath hitching on the last syllable as Logan spits and pushes his thumb against his hole, not enough to penetrate, firm enough that the thought of it has gotta be lodged front and center in Cable’s mind. “Probably. Put some-- _huh,_ put some effort in and I'll see how you do.”

“You know,” says Logan slyly, helping himself to two generous handfuls of ass and squeezing. “Your lovely ex-wife is a _lot_ more appreciative of my work.” He does his best not to laugh as Cable simultaneously tenses up and tells him to shut his idiot mouth and, most intriguing of all, pumps his dick hard with those powerful thick metal fingers as the smell of his loneliness spills into the water again, cold and shocking to the system. 

_Pathetic,_ thinks Logan, without any real cruel heat to his thoughts. _Ain't that the real price of love._

“Frank never gives me back talk,” Logan continues. To his credit Cable ignores the obvious bait with little more than a shake of his head at the whole-cloth lie, far more interested in the way Logan is playing with his ass to correctly point out that Frank would argue with the sun if he thought there was some kind of net benefit to gain from it.

“Frank only says thank you and begs to get knocked up.”

“By the Bright fucking Lady, cram it,” Cable says, stroking himself off. He arches his back, an invitation for Logan to get back to eating him out. “You're fixated.”

“And you ain't no fun.” He rubs his knuckles up Cable’s thigh, hits his scars, and cups Cable’s balls in his palm. “Don't you like reminiscing, Tiny?” He curls up his fingers a touch, tightens his grip just enough to be felt.

The muscles up Cable’s back twitch, tense and release, a shiver up his spine as he sucks back a heavy breath. Logan sees the gleam of Cable’s dud eye a split second before he feels the iron-hard weight of a hand around his neck, invisible and untouchable when he reflexively grabs at his throat with his free hand. 

“Don't even think about it,” says Cable. “Behave. Play nice.”

Logan laughs, wheezy under the pressure on his trachea, and slowly lets go of Cable’s testicles. The telekinetic choke 'round his throat holds on for a few moments longer before letting go with a last warning squeeze. 

See, _this_ is what he likes about Cable. Nathan Summers has a mean streak, dangerous on a scale beyond most, buried underneath iron-willed self control and a conscious affectation of patience that's developed over the past decade. They fight like cats and dogs, him ‘n Cable, but it's hard to prod him to his breaking point and truthfully there's always something gonna be suicidal in Logan’s nature that compels him to find the biggest fella in the room and needle him to the fraying edge of his patience. Doing it to Cable always bears the most fun fruit, almost makes the hard work worth it.

“Behave,” says Cable again. “Or I really will rub your nose in it.”

Logan ignores him and hunches over, chin half in the water, and licks a broad stripe from Cable's balls to his hole. He does it again and again ‘til the big man is grinding back on his face, groaning loud as Logan points his tongue and licks into him with a chorus of wet noise, skin sticking to skin, breathing hard. 

He can tell Cable is edging himself closer and closer to coming; the tension rippling through his huge body, the smell of dumb animal hunger rolling off his skin, the way the water around his thighs shimmers with an incriminating glow from every quiver of muscle or stroke of his hand. 

He doesn't get this carried away often, the big fella quaking under Logan’s mouth, but when he does it's a beautiful sight and an ego boost to boot. Dragging Cable to the very edge of his self control makes him lose that iron-willed telekinetic repression, makes it go loose ‘round the edges; little things, stupid things, a bedside clock rising up an inch or the lights going dim, discarded clothes rising a foot from the floor and churning like the wild ocean. 

The water surges out from them in a wave. Small ripples tracing across the surface of the water, then bigger ridges of water that splash against the far side of the spring. The vines hanging heavy around the cliff heave and shudder forth big heavy ginger flowers, weeping rivulets of ginger juice into the pool before they fall with a splash, one after the other, barely hitting the steaming warm water before the overworked vines are already straining out another flower, another and another. A overhang covered in wild cliffside greenery sways and bends in an imperceptible wind, uneven concentric circles that explode from the center and radiate outwards, fragile tender leaves falling as fast as they can bud. 

Cable is gonna come, and Krakoa is being dragged along with him. 

Logan smells Cable’s orgasm before he feels it under his mouth. He feels it under his mouth before he sees it, hears it, Cable straining back and clutching at Logan’s head with powerful thick metal fingers and disjointed grasping greedy ephemeral hands, invisible and restless, using him to get himself off. Logan closes his eyes and forsakes the need to breathe, subsumed by the primal delight of being a tool for Cable’s pleasure, pinned in place and used ‘til Cable’s coming with a shout; shooting thick hot ribbons of semen against the mossy stone and riding back on Logan's face so hard that, if he was anyone else in the world, Cable probably would've broken his nose. 

The leaves overhead shake so hard that they start to fall, scattered leaves, no bigger than a thumbnail, clinging to Cable’s back and scattered across the water. 

That first breath of air tastes so sweet and heady that it makes Logan’s head spin, panting as that unshakable grip loosens and ephemeral hands stroke at his hair, Cable’s current shaky grasp on his abilities leaving the phantom touch disjointed and shivery as it pets at Logan’s face while he's sacked out over the hot spring edge, wrung out and spent. 

It's a goddamn sight to be savoured. No prettier sight in the world than Cable knocked the hell out by Logan’s own effort, and not just because it always takes a hard mile of road to drag him to that point in the first place. He fists his dick under the water and looks his fill, until Cable rolls those huge sculpted shoulders and turns his head just enough to eyeball Logan. He rests his cheek on the cool moss and, again, reaches ‘round and back to spread himself wide. 

“C’mon,” he says, too spent to bother dressing up his invitation in impenetrable layers of artifice and affectation. “Give it to me.”

Logan surges up with a splash, spotlit from below by the luminous water as he beats off, yanking his dick mean. He runs his fingers down Cable’s ass, feeling the heat from all that lovely tender skin marked up pink from Logan's whiskers. Cable hums under his breath and watches him with one half-closed eye, sucking a slow breath between his teeth as Logan presses his thumb against his hole.

“Next time,” Logan says. “Next time I'm gonna fill this hole 'til you look pregnant.” Cable’s ass is virgin tight under his touch, no give when Logan pushes a lil’ firmer again this hole. _What a waste,_ he thinks. What a waste that one of the best, most challenging fucks around has clearly taken himself off the market ‘cause of a pathetic case of a broken heart.

“Ambitious,” says Cable. The light sparks from his eye, shimmers against the moss, and Logan bucks forward as ephemeral hands stroke up his inner thighs and cup his ass and press firm against his taint. The sensation of touch squeezes his tits and wraps light around his throat, strokes his spine and touches his feet, and Logan huffs loud into the still night air and jacks off faster. The touch mirrors his own, a perfect copy of the way he's playing with Cable’s asshole. When he presses firm, it presses firm. When he spits and wets his thumb just enough to push in a quarter of an inch, Cable’s touch pushes harder against his already wet hole and keeps going ‘til it feels like he's being filled up tortuously slow; quarter inch by quarter inch, fucked by something thick and hard and hot ‘til he's grunting and fucking forward into his fist and grinding back against nothing at all. 

The touch at his throat tightens a little, right as he gets that tickle at the base of his skull that tells him Cable is trying to do the impossible and get in his head. He thinks _yes_ as loud as he can, a clarion call that only gets louder in his head as Cable strangles him a little tighter, a little tighter, a little more until Logan is choking on his own spit and his vision is tunnelling down to nothing except the expanse of muscle and metal right in front of him.

Then Cable lets go.

The shock of oxygen hitting his system knocks him like a hit ‘round the head, and Logan shouts as he cums hard, dick throbbing and his head banging and his lungs burning, too much, too loud, too good. Logan paints him with thick spurts of semen, cum dripping down Cable’s taint and balls as Logan milks himself empty and grinds his dick against Cable’s hole until he's drained dry and softening in his hand.

“Jesus Christ,” he says, falling backwards into the spring with a splash, ducking under the water to wash the spit from his face. “God fuckin’ damn.”

“Agreed,” says Cable, a hand pressed at the small of his back as he grimaces and slides back off the mossy wall and into the water. “Still feeling bored?”

Logan makes a noncommittal noise, _mmhmmn._ “Give it ten minutes and I'll get back to you.”

Cable laughs at that, sculling backwards and cutting a path through the mess of tiny leaves he'd inadvertently shaken free until he finds a spot deep enough that he can lazily roll onto his stomach and duck-dive under the steaming water. “For the record,” he says, spitting water in a long jet when he resurfaces, “I'd much rather do this than take your godawful boxing advice.”

“I’ll keep it in mind for next time.”

Cable doesn't dispute that there's a next time. There's eventually always a next time for them, sure as the sun rises. A fight, a fuck, or both, nothing more than it needs to be.

They stay like that a long while, in near-silence that's companionable as they're capable of being, before Cable holds up his flesh hand from the water and says, slightly mournfully, that he's pruned up. He hauls himself out of the hot spring pool and sluices water from his body with the side of his hand, hair to feet. 

“C’mon,” he says, gathering his sweaty workout clothes and bundling them under his arm. “Do you want a ride home?”

Logan shakes his head and sways back into the water, as close to floating as he's physically able. “I'm good,” he says to the sky. “Still wide awake. Might as well hang around here a while longer.”

“Your loss.”

Logan chuckles and helps himself to one last look at Cable, naked and steaming hot, still glistening silvery-damp under the moonlight. “Pleasure as always, Tiny.”

“You are moderately welcome.” 

Logan wades to the edge of the pool and leans against it, elbows rubbing into thin moss, and considers the big man standing a ways in front of him. “Frank’s in Canada,” he says. "Has been for a week now."

If he wasn't already attuned to the tells of Cable’s body he might have missed the way Cable goes tense all over for the briefest of moments, every muscle drawn as taut as corded wire. “I'm going up there in a few days on my own business,” he adds. “Same area. If I follow the sound of gunfire--”

“Have fun,” Cable says, clearly aiming for flippant and falling well short of the mark. “Have fun on your milkshake date.”

“That's the message you want me to pass along?” It's a special kind of mean to do this not half an hour after Cable’s just shot his brains out the tip of his dick, Logan knows, but he's never been above being a petty asshole.

“Next time,” Cable says cryptically, and then he's gone with a spark of cold white light, air rushing to fill the sudden void with a loud crack. Logan can smell a trace of lonely cold ocean and wind-whipped salt spray lingering underneath the burnt ozone of Cable’s departure, and he rolls his eyes as he throws himself backwards into the hot water with a colossal splash that glows and shimmers as water droplets arc through the air. 

_Pathetic,_ thinks Logan, looking up at the stars wheeling overhead. _Ain't that the real price of love._

**Author's Note:**

> I have a comix blog where I post little of value: [stryfeposting](http://stryfeposting.tumblr.com).


End file.
